Father Knows Best

Some of you may remember the old sitcom, "Father Knows Best."  It was just a basic story about a basic family--or at least what was considered "basic" back then--and their everyday lives.

The show debuted in 1954 and you can watch episodes of it on the internet via Hulu.  As Hulu describes it, "in episode after episode, Jim and Margaret treated their children’s youthful transgressions with authority, empathy and wisdom. By the end of each half hour, we’d all learned our lesson."

There definitely were many lessons to be learned from that series.  Two of the most important ones that I recall are that children fare best with the constant presence of their mother and father, and the entire family fares best with a strong, loving, actively involved, Godly father at the helm of it.

Our church distributes a devotional entitled, "The Word for You Today."  One of the entries detailed a story in Genesis 35 where just before Rachel died in childbirth she named her son Ben-Oni, which means "son of my sorrow." His father Jacob, however declared "He shall not be called Ben-Oni, the son of my sorrow; he shall be called Benjamin, the son of the right hand" (which means son of power).

Here was a situation where a mother placed the weight of her sorrow on the shoulders of her newborn child, who never asked to be brought into this world.  Her baby was not the source of her sorrow, it was her own choices and other circumstances that contributed to her sorrow. 

Yet, Rachel's anger, disappointment and frustration--perhaps due to what could have been an unexpected pregnancy, perhaps due to the possibility of unresolved issues with the father of the child, perhaps due to resentment of the sacrifices required of a wife and mother, in this case her very life--all manifested in the very name she chose for her child.

If Rachel had her way, her son would have been forced to live his entire life with a daily reminder that he was considered the source of his mother's sorrow.
Thank God that in this case, his father knew best.

Jacob was a Godly man who knew the importance of a name.  His name, which meant trickster, had actually been changed by God--his heavenly Father-- to Israel.  Instead of a trickster, he became known as one who wrestled with God and became the father of many nations.

Human fathers are subject to the same frailties as the rest of us, so I understand that they do not always literally know what is best.  However, our heavenly Father always knows what's best.  And, when earthly fathers stay intimately connected with their heavenly Father, they will always be able to discern what is best.

Also, when we follow God's original plan for the family unit and honor the important roles that God has given to every member in the family, we find unequivocally that Father knows best. 

Some of us want to believe that as long as a child has love coming from at least one parent that they will be alright.  Those who work with children on a regular basis--teachers, youth ministers, police officers, medical professionals, etc., will tell you otherwise.  We see and hear what some parents don't ever see at home--or don't want to see.  Even among those who are academically bright, we see far too many angry, depressed, confused children who perfect those traits when they become adults, even if outwardly they appear to have achieved success. 

This is in no way a denigration of single parents or those of us who grew up without our biological fathers.  It is simply an acknowledgement that God made THE recipe for human growth and development. When we deviate from the original recipe, we inevitably end up with less than what was originally intended. 

We can easily follow that logic when thinking of something like Colonel Sanders' recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken.  If we don't follow his recipe exactly (from the list of ingredients to every piece of required equipment), we cannot call what we have produced Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC.  We couldn't even legally put up a KFC sign outside our establishment without being accused of fraud.

Family, we have got to stop accepting the fraud with regard to what is required for a family.  That means we got to stop accepting the fraud of the "free love" movement and all other movements that moved us away from God's plan and toward a self-centered plan that says, "if it feels good do it."

It felt good for Rachel to project her pain onto her baby, but at what price to her son and the generations to come forth from him?  Some of us not only base our decisions on what feels good, but what makes us feel "bad."

Some of us reject the notion of God as "Father," but have we ever explored the source of our feelings about the matter?  What makes the image of God as a father negative? Certainly God is not limited to the image of a father, for God has many attributes.  So, why can't "Father" be one of them?

Regardless of how we feel about the matter, no mother would ever be able to give birth without the help of a father--even if he is nothing more than an anonymous sperm donor. 

When we embrace God as the ultimate, infinitely loving, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Father whose plans for us are good and not evil, perhaps the eyes of our hearts and minds will truly be open to see that Father Knows Best.

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen